The Associated Press

IOWA CITY - The University of Iowa is limiting the number of online courses and students that faculty can teach after it was learned that some professors received big bonuses for teaching up to three times their regular class load.

In a copyright story, the Des Moines Sunday Register, is reporting that the university changed the way professors are paid for online courses, a practice known as "overload" duties, this fall.

An analysis by the Register shows that Iowa's public universities spent a combined $2.72 million on overload pay in 2007-08. The bonuses ranged from $17,000 to $120,000, including 14 University of Iowa professors who were paid overload bonuses that exceeded 30 percent of their base salaries for the year that ended June 30.

The bonuses at Iowa were the largest among the state's three public universities - Iowa State and Northern Iowa spent nearly $1 million combined.

Overload pay, which covers extra duties ranging from picking up a course for a colleague who has an illness to playing piano at graduation, allows universities to provide more services without hiring more faculty, officials said.

"It is far more cost-effective to use existing faculty than to hire new professors," U of I Provost Wallace Loh said. "In this approach, we're only paying for teaching."

All three of Iowa's public universities have limits on the number of overload courses a professor can teach because the schools want faculty to have time for research and service, such as serving on committees. The universities also are concerned that the quality of education can slip if faculty takes on too many students, provosts said.

Officials say skyrocketing enrollment in online courses is one factor in the amount of overload pay at the University of Iowa.

The university implemented a new payment system for overload online courses last year but didn't set limits on the number of courses a professor could teach or the number of students would could enroll. That led to some professors teaching too many classes, Loh said.

Loh decided in September to limit the number of extra online courses a professor can teach to one per semester with a cap of 36 students per course. The change goes into effect next spring.

Some professors and online experts are criticizing the university's limits in online enrollment and payment policy.

Janet Poley, president of the American Distance Learning Consortium, said capping per-course enrollment at 36 does not allow for different teaching methods, including using teaching assistants to help with large online classes, as is done with traditional classes taught in large lecture halls.

"The number of students you can have in a given class is a matter of design," Poley said.

The University of Wisconsin at Madison does not have across-the-board enrollment caps, and faculty who teach online courses do so as part of their regular course load, said Marv Van Kekerix, interim vice provost for lifelong learning.

Wisconsin also has a state statute prohibiting full-time state employees from earning more than $12,000 per year in overload pay from a single institution.

The University of Illinois does not have an across-the-board enrollment cap for online courses and does not limit the amount of overload pay faculty can earn, spokeswoman Robin Kaler said.